PLEASE READ: POLICY ON AGGRESSIVE AND UNCIVIL BEHAVIOUR

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Hi folks

The moderators have decided to clarify the existing site policy regarding personal attacks, as a number of people still appear to be under the impression that aggression and ridiculing other members is acceptable. To make this clear:

Personal attacks, which include insinuation, ridicule and personal insults, regardless of whether direct or indirect, are not allowed on the forums.

Aggressive, or offensive (i.e. sexist, racist, homophobic, etc), behaviour intended to provoke or belittle other members or groups of members is also not allowed. This also applies to Private Messages.

This will be formally enforced as follows.

A member who has committed an offence will receive three warnings by PM from a moderator.

The member has the right to know what caused offence and why, and a record will be kept on the moderators forum so that we can keep track and avoid individual bias.

The offence is cancelled if the member makes a genuine apology if no offence was intended or was on impulse, provided the member does not continue to provoke or upset others.

If three warnings are recorded and the member behaves uncivilly again, they will be banned for one week.

Further violations of the policy will lead to further action by the arbitration committee.

This decision has been made due to the intolerant behaviour displayed on the site in recent months, which has led to the membership of one user becoming unsustainable due to constant personal attacks. This should be a place where people can speak freely without being attacked - so lets keep it civil everyone, and make the forums a pleasant place to debate and share experiences and support once more.

Dunc on behalf of the moderators

Can I also ask that if any members see a post that violates this policy that they PM whichever of the moderators that are currently online so that the situation can be dealt with promptly.

Active mods:
Myself
alex
magic
duncvis
JayShaw
CockneyRebel
Civet

Thanks,
Mel

To be honest I think it's about time some proper rules are established. I have wide experience with forums and moderating and don't really find it acceptable to take authority action without set rules.

Good work. Three thumbs up.

How about one rule: "play nice"

I know as someone with Asperger's that often we don't always know that something we are saying is offensive or hurtful. we often think that as long as we are speaking what we believe as the truth it is OK. I have not made many posts on this board but I can tell you from personal experience with people that this happens. I am not supporting this kind of behavior in any way. But I am saying that as someone with Asp. that I often have no idea that something I may have have said was hurtful or inappropriate. As Aspie's we need very detailed and clear cut rules(.....is OK,.....is not OK). This is what often seperates us from the "normal" population. Just a suggestion.

Thanks for your comments Katie. I am aware that sometimes offence is caused unintentionally; this is generally dealt with informally, there are many examples of this throughout the threads where it is pointed out by another poster or a moderator that a comment could be seen as offensive or hurtful, and where no offence is meant, the poster usually apologises.

The policy is in place purely to deal with members who persistently insult or attack others, or express prejudice and/or hatred towards a group of people. The safeguard against treating people who did not mean to offend unfairly is that members get to know what caused offence, and an apology for the behaviour cancels the warning. In practice it is not frequently used, but in previous months there was a problem with some of the behaviours covered in the policy here - which has now been stamped out so that everyone is free to post in peace.

Hope that makes it clearer Katie.

Dunc